Armchairs
by Monty Twain
Summary: Very short character studies starting after the reunion, so post-post-Reichenbach. Eventual John/Sherlock, mostly fluff. THIS CHAPTER: 'I can do this', thinks John, looking. 'I really can.' Sherlock is changing a light bulb.
1. Contrary

Sherlock is a strange person. Obviously. But he's strange in more ways than is clear from your first look at him. Much as he likes independence, he hates being alone, much as he distrusts strangers he has no problems with being touched or touching. Despite suffering from the cold and adoring pyjama days, he doesn't own a pair of slippers. He wears Dolce and Gabanna shirts and flatshares, he loves efficiency but prefers cabs to the tube, he finds a lot of people amusing yet rarely smiles with his teeth. It's like he's trying to be contrary.  
John is a little weird too, which most people find less obvious, something Sherlock finds dreadfully frustrating. John has punched the chief superintendent of the Metropolitan Police, but thanks cash points on withdrawals. He thinks himself fairly laid back, but prefers to stand than to sit. When he was fifteen, he did work experience at the veterinary clinic in Battersea Dogs Home, but John actually hates dogs. And he's a doctor who carries a gun, there's always that.  
Both of them think they shouldn't get on nearly as well as they do.


	2. Knows

It's a Saturday morning. Sherlock has encroached upon the Shelf of Sustenance with his experiments, so John's going between the kitchen and the living room, emptying the fridge onto his half of the desk so he can fit his cider in. [The desk has defined halves. Though technically Sherlock's, John started using it the week he moved in, after noticing Sherlock didn't use it. Then Sherlock put a fish tank on his half, used it as a ruler, and marked his territory with a compass. The tank has moved, the boundaries have not.] Sherlock's just watching over the top of a newspaper like a spy. And John knows he's watching, so he's mixing all of Sherlock's bits of face up so Sherlock will eventually get up and help, or else not keep the ears on that shelf. But Sherlock knows John knows he's watching, and is letting him mix it up, so he wins. He doesn't currently realise John knows that as well, but that his mixing will eventually inconvenience Sherlock, and then, later, _he_ wins. John always plays the longer game.  
John's half of the desk is wrapped in cling-film in order to keep the icy blood residue from staining the table. He thinks that this, with some Dettol later, is the most hygienic he can make the job. Sherlock is going to use the bread faster than usual so that John will go out and he can clean it again with a chemical mixture he devised himself, so John doesn't get ill. John will Dettol the desk to within an inch of its life because he disapproves of the mixture. Though better than other cleaning agents either of them have used, it chaps Sherlock's hands.


	3. Surfaces

Sherlock is sleeping. On principle, John is pleased about this. Sherlock had been awake for about three days, without much before that either. The body does some strange things when completely exhausted but it was John, not Sherlock, who had experienced some of the particularly late stages beforehand. Sherlock expressed some small discomfort when his symptoms became more acute- the headache got worse, the chilliness became a constant feverish switch between hot and cold, he started to find everything hilariously funny or incredibly stupid. But he was quite sensibly alarmed when he climbed the stairs on the third evening and he felt shooting pains in his legs. John had put him to bed that instant. But that had been twenty hours ago, and if he didn't wake him now, his sleeping routine would be ruined for a week.  
The truth was Sherlock had never been healthy enough to stay up for three days before. He'd stayed up for two nights in a row several times, but once he'd got to about sixty hours he tended to collapse. One can take all the amphetamines one likes, but if you don't eat, drink OR sleep for that long you're much more likely to faint than keep going.  
John's watching him sleep then, relishing the stillness of Sherlock's face, the quietness of his breath and the length of his eyelashes, when he realises what he's doing. He considers particularly masculine, heterosexual ways of waking Sherlock. Deciding Sherlock hasn't merited the punishment of being jumped on or poured water over, he reaches and tickles his left foot. Sherlock's face transforms straight from the "serious boy" look of sleep to a "you inconvenienced Mycroft" grin and that's beautiful, it's like seeing a diver in reverse, breaking the surface and neatly leaping back to the board…  
"What are you doing?" Sherlock's foot twitches under John's hand, then slides quickly away.  
"Tickling you."  
"I'm not ticklish." He looks genuinely surprised.  
"Evidence to the contrary," John's fingertips lightly brush the arch of his foot again, sending it shooting back under the duvet. "Most people are, they just don't know where."  
"Why wouldn't I know where I was ticklish?"  
"You can't tickle yourself, so you probably don't do it by accident."  
Slowly, a bony foot slides from under the covers. "Do it again then." He waggles strangely beautiful toes. "For science."


	4. Subtleties

"Don't sulk, Sherlock. It's hardly something you can deduce."  
"Everything can be deduced, just not necessarily by me. Apparently."  
"It's not as if it exactly suits me. You're much more likely to have committed a death-defying physical stunt as a baby than me."  
"Being born breech suits your personality completely."  
"Why's that?"  
"Because it's exactly like you to commit a death-defying physical stunt as a baby and then never mention it."


	5. Palms

Sherlock's been watching John's hands lately. He's decided he likes all of John, but at the moment, the hands are his favourite, so he's watching John order their books [mixed, like his parents but not John's parents; mixed like in marriage] and enjoying the view of John's hands. John has a peculiar weakness for Sherlock's own hands [he never says, Sherlock just notices], touching them rarely and very gently as if they're made of porcelain. He understands many people think they are attractive. But Sherlock's hands are beautiful in an obvious way. John's hands have square palms strong enough to lift both of their copies of Gray's Anatomy together, fingers clever enough to open Sherlock's book "Mauve" and open several pages at once to try and work out its genre.  
"What's this about?"  
"The first artificial dye."  
"That's how Robert Koch discovered bacteria, isn't it? Something to do with dying beer."  
"He features."  
"So with the medical texts?"  
"Might as well."  
"History?"  
"That's probably better."  
John works around Sherlock, and ushers him, like a father's hand in the corner of old photographs, to the centre of the room.


	6. Hems

On a train coming back from Edinburgh, Sherlock Holmes fell asleep. First his head nodded down ["_yes, Lestrade, you've just about grasped the basics"_], then it knocked against the window, vibrating ["_Get out, Anderson." "Yeah, run away and NEVER return." "…Sorry?"_], then bumped back against the seat ["_Mycroft I can't even bear to look at you"_]. John considered waking him so he didn't get a crick his neck, but didn't. It was much more amusing to see the grace slide off his friend's features in slow motion. Either that, or he just wanted to read his book in peace, he wasn't sure.

When the ticket inspector came and bothered them at Chesterfield, Sherlock's head was precariously balanced on his shoulder, and John's coat had left a long pink crease in his cheek where he'd slumped against the wool and leather hem. John raised his eyebrows at the inspector and carefully put his book down.

"Is he with you then?"  
"Yes."


	7. Changing

_I can do this_, thinks John, looking. _I really can._

Sherlock is changing a light bulb. It's his job; the high ceilings of 221b require it. Over the five years John and Sherlock have either lived in 221b or "been away for a while", this is the only bulb that has ever needed changing besides one in Sherlock's room. John is at this very moment considering ways to use up the bulbs faster, because right now -right _now_- _this _is the moment he has never wanted Sherlock more. John is unsure as to whether the new bulb will work. The room feels as if it is swelling with love so much he's relatively sure he's fused the house.

Sherlock doesn't seem to have noticed, threading his wrist into the lampshade. He doesn't see how when he twists his hips slightly to give him extra height, the rainy afternoon blue hits that peeking skin _just so_, how he somehow makes standing on his tiptoes cast a more masculine light on his feet. John really can't see how anyone could watch Sherlock blow the bits of dust settling on his shoulders without sort of inwardly gasping. Sherlock hands him the old bulb and John, standing next to the chair, hands him the new one.

Then it's screwed in, of course. It hardly takes long. Sherlock steps off the chair with John gently touching his elbow, not because he needs help, just because; Sherlock is standing at his usual height, which is still rather over six feet and much taller than him. Sherlock is the only person in the world who can crowd John into the middle of the room, and he leans back, looking away for the first time in eons. Sherlock leans in a bit.

"Well that's that then," he says, hands on hips. John can smell him.

"That's that." John looks up, they stare at each other. _Kiss me. Please._

He doesn't. John keeps the light bulb anyway.


End file.
